A ‘New Normal’ or Returning to the ‘Old Normal’: Deteriorating US–China Relations, Chinese Americans, and the Future

Abstract

State and public suspicion and hostility toward Chinese Americans are at all-time highs. Or are they? Conditions are certainly bad, the worst in decades, and resemble the 1950s in the US. We are returning to the old “normal” in the lives of Chinese Americans. Can we expect significant improvement if US–China state relations improve? It is doubtful and Chinese Americans must temper our expectations of what life might be like in the US for the foreseeable future.